Chapter 30: The rivalry spills into the alley where Serenity demonstrates exactly how she'll mutilate Bernice in their next match, using Marcus as both audience and unwilling participant in her graphic threats of gynaecological violence.
The jagged glass missed Marcus’s femoral artery by a millimeter, but it didn’t miss. A hot, bright line of pain seared across the back of his thigh, and his leg gave way completely. He crashed to the filthy concrete, a grunt of shock and agony forced from his lungs.
“Marcus!” Serenity’s cry was a blade of sound in the cramped alley.
Henderson slumped against the doorframe, gasping, his assault on his own airway finally overwhelming his rage. But the damage was done.
From the deeper shadows between two overflowing dumpsters, a hulking figure emerged. Bernice Bigelow moved with a predator’s patience, her face a granite mask of satisfaction. She’d been waiting. Watching. The broken neck of a beer bottle dangled from her thick fingers.
“Touching,” Bernice rasped, her voice like gravel. “Really. But the show’s over. Time to pay the piper, Serene.”
She lunged, not for Serenity, but for the downed Marcus. The bottle arced down towards his face. Marcus threw up an arm, and the glass caught him high on the cheekbone, laying it open to the bone. Blood sheeted down his face, hot and blinding.
That was all Serenity needed.
The world narrowed to a tunnel of cold, focused fury. The ache in her ribs, the exhaustion from her own fight, the terrifying image of Marcus’s broken body in the basement—it all combusted into a single, incandescent point.
As Bernice straightened up, a triumphant smirk twisting her scarred lips, Serenity moved. She didn’t charge. She flowed. Two quick steps, a hand planted on the damp, greasy lid of the steel dumpster for leverage, and she launched herself onto Bernice’s broad back.
Her legs scissored around Bernice’s thick waist, locking tight. One arm hooked around her neck, crushing her windpipe. The other hand, fingers curled into a hardened fist, drove upwards with the force of a piston.
Bernice staggered, a choked gurgle escaping her. She bucked, trying to throw Serenity off, but Serenity held on like a burr, her weight and leverage an impossible counter to Bernice’s raw strength.
“You want round thirty-four, bitch?” Serenity hissed into her ear, the words cold and precise. “Let’s see how you like cervical fisting on concrete.”
She didn’t wait for an answer. Shifting her weight, she used her legs to unbalance Bernice, driving her forward. Bernice’s head snapped forward and connected with the rusted edge of the dumpster with a wet, metallic thud. Once. Twice.
Bernice’s struggles weakened. A low moan rumbled in her chest. Serenity maintained the pressure for a three-count longer than necessary, then released her legs, shoving the dazed woman away. Bernice collapsed onto her hands and knees, vomiting a stream of cheap beer and bile onto the asphalt.
Serenity dropped into a crouch, breathing hard, her eyes wild. She glanced at Marcus, who was trying to stem the flow of blood from his cheek with a torn piece of his shirt. His eyes met hers, wide with pain and a stark, terrifying pride.
“We can’t stay here,” he managed, his voice thick.
Sirens, distant but approaching, wailed through the night. The commotion had finally drawn attention.
Serenity nodded, the clinical part of her mind taking over. She ripped a long strip from the bottom of her skirt, the fabric tough and durable. “Hold this,” she commanded, pressing it hard against the gash on his thigh. He winced but complied, his hand covering hers.
She then helped him to his feet, his arm slung over her shoulders, taking his weight. He was heavy, and every step sent a jolt of fire through her own battered body.
They hobbled past the wheezing form of Henderson, who was now staring vacantly at the wall, and past Bernice, who was still on all fours, spitting curses into a puddle of her own sick.
“This ain’t over, Fury!” Bernice croaked.
Serenity didn’t even look back. “It is for tonight.”
They stumbled out of the mouth of the alley and into the marginally brighter, deserted street. The cold night air was a shock, cleaning the stench of blood and garbage from their lungs. They moved like a three-legged creature, a grotesque and intimate dance of survival.
“The car’s two blocks away,” Marcus gasped, his breath hitching.
“We’ll make it,” Serenity said, her voice leaving no room for argument. She adjusted her grip, her muscles screaming in protest. “Then we’re going to the clinic. The one across town. No arguments.”
Marcus gave a weak, pained chuckle. “Wouldn’t dream of it.” He leaned his head against hers for a moment. “You were… magnificent.”
A small, tired smile touched her lips. “You bit a man’s nipple off for me. Let’s not keep score on magnificence.”
They kept moving, a slow, painful procession under the indifferent glow of the streetlights. Each step was an eternity, each shadow a potential threat. But they were moving. Together. Leaving the alley, the basement, and the violence behind them, for now. The sirens grew louder, but they were already dissolving into the city’s dark veins, two wounded animals seeking a den to lick their wounds and, against all odds, survive.